Chuck Collier and the Car Show

Boys Night Out

Chuck Collier and I worked together for only about a year and a half but in that short period of time we became very good friends. We'd often say to one another that we had to get out of the office and have dinner and tilt one or two but time flew by and we kept putting it off. He was as guility of putting it off as I was. There was always something that got in the way of our boys night out.

Me and Chuck at work (of course) goofing around with cigars and a bottle of Crown Royal given to us by John Rich

I love cars and old car shows and I had heard great things about a car show Tuesday nights during the summer in Solon. With some free time on my hands one Tuesday late last July I made plans to go out to Solon and enjoy some of Detroit's finest old iron. I invited Chuck fully expecting him to say he was too busy to go but much to my surprise, delight and thrill he said he would join me. Yes! On the way to Solon we were as happy as a couple of high school sophomores playing hooky from school.

If you look closely you can see Chuck on the left in the reflection of the hood on this spectacular '57 Chevy

Despite agreeing to go Chuck seemed a bit apprehensive because he had never been to car show before. "I don't know anything about cars!" he repeated over and over. "Chuck", I assured him, "Relax! You'll be fine. It's a bunch of people with old cars who love showing them off and talking about them. Trust me. You'll love it".

Chuck and a 1950 Chevrolet

The Solon Commons Car Show is fantastic. Hundreds of  cars of all  sorts of makes, models, vintages and condition. The painfully perfect, "trailer queens" along side the hopeless rust buckets in  my opinion make for the perfect car show. The weather on that  warm summer Tuesday night was spectacular too so that meant the die hards who only take their cars out on the most perfect of nights would be there. Chuck was in awe of all the old cars and he was also taken back by how friendly the car owners were and easy he found it to make small talk with them. Small talk being a Chuck Collier trademark.

 I took this photograph of a 1972 Chevrolet Impala's 400 engine tag. In the photo you can also see Chuck's signature summer docksiders.

"This...this is fantastic!" he said over and over again, "I grew up with a lot of these cars!" It was neat to get Chuck's point of view on the cars from a someone-who-had-been-there perspective. He told me  what cars were special when they were new (not all of today's collectible cars were well received when new), which ones weren't. Chuck wasn't into horsepower and torque or size of engines and types of transmissions but he was into the memories that the cars brought back for him.

Chuck's father had a '55 Dodge just like this

As we were making our way out of the show Chuck stopped cold in his tracks when he saw a purple and white sedan. "My God...that's my Dad's car!" he said. "I haven't seen one of these in years!"The car was a 1955 Dodge Royal Lancer.

Chuck and the owner of the Dodge, whom he never met before, talked for over half an hour about the car

Chuck went right to work gabbing away with the car's owner. They chatted away like old friends. In no time Chuck found out that the owner had found the car at an estate sale outside of Kansas City.  The original owner had passed away and the family put the car in a barn where it stayed for over 40 years. Yes. The Dodge was literally a barn find. It had only 30,000 miles on it when it went into the barn and was was all original except for the tires, hoses and brakes. Chuck gushed about the great condition the car was in and how much it resembled the car his Dad had when he was a boy growing up in southern Ohio. The car was for sale and there was glint in Chuck's eye. He scratched his chin and looked at me with a "what do YOU think" look. I shrugged as if to say, "what are you, nuts?" He laughed.  

 Mr. Collier's Royal Lancer was the top-of-the line 1955 Dodge.

After the show we went to dinner and on and on he went about that Dodge and all the memories he had of it. We agreed that an old car was a better time machine than seeing our childhood homes again because chances are our old homes have changed a lot from when we lived in them. The cars of our youth whisk us right back to when we kids.

As we drove back to the radio station after dinner Chuck thanked me over and over for asking him to go to the car show. Funny how he was a bit nervous at first about going but afterwards he wanted to go back another Tuesday and check the cars out again. Maybe the '55 Dodge Royal Lancer would there again. Afterall, it was for sale.

Miss ya, buddy.